


sound the bells

by theantepenultimateriddle



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Desperate measures but they capture Minkowski and hilbert, F/F, Gen, Nothing good happens, The relationship elements are minor but there, you gotta deal with that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 07:51:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11755344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theantepenultimateriddle/pseuds/theantepenultimateriddle
Summary: Boys, sound the bells,The sun rose from the west today.I doubt we'll see it set.





	sound the bells

**Author's Note:**

> This fucking thing took me a total of five months so y'all better appreciate it. I took some quotes from ep 45 and ep 18, but most of it is original.

Minkowski stops Hilbert just outside the tech wing, and they listen to Jacobi within, muttering to himself as he tears out wires. “Where’s the gas canister?” she whispers, trying to be as quiet as she can and still be heard. Hilbert is too close to her, so close she almost feels nauseated, and she wants so badly to shove him away from her and get some air. But she can’t do that without jeopardizing their mission, so she sticks it out, gritting her teeth, and waits for him to answer the question.

“Behind the control column,” he says, under his breath. “We must wait for him to get closer before detonating. Otherwise it may not work.” Jacobi, inside the bridge, goes silent for a moment, and Minkowski tenses. After a moment, he goes back to work, and both she and Hilbert let out the breaths they were holding and go back to watching him.

Jacobi moves towards the control column slowly, pausing every now and then to fix other things. Finally he’s within five feet of it, and Minkowski glances at Hilbert for confirmation. He nods, and she presses down the button on the remote with finality.

Nothing happens.

Minkowski presses the button twice more, in quick succession, but the canister does not detonate and Jacobi stays infuriatingly conscious. “Shit!” She shoves the remote at Hilbert, and he fumbles with it for a moment before managing to catch it and hold on. Then he stares at her, confusion evident behind his thick glasses.

“Minkowski, what are you-“

“Quiet,” she hisses, putting as much authority as she can into that single word. She flexes her fingers, staring at Jacobi, and then nods to herself. She has no idea, not a single goddamn clue, if she’s going to be able to take Jacobi in a fight, let alone knock him out. But she has the element of surprise, and she needs to use it quick. Minkowski readies herself to go in, but before she can enter there’s a thud and a gasp from Hilbert and he crumples, his unconscious form floating in midair in the microgravity. She braces herself against the wall and shoves herself around as fast as she can, hands balled into fists and ready to fight, but all she sees is a very, very quick glimpse of Maxwell, right before the doctor swings an arm and a metal wrench strikes Minkowski’s head, sending her into the dark.

* * *

 Something hits Minkowski in the face and jolts her awake, into a world of pain. Her head hurts so much that she’s surprised her skull is intact, and a trail of wetness down the side of her head and neck and into her collar indicates that maybe it isn’t. She manages to blink the stars mostly out of her vision, eventually, and the first thing she sees is Kepler standing in front of her, his arms crossed. Maxwell and Jacobi flank him like a pair of bodyguards. “Good morning, Lieutenant Minkowski!” he booms, in that Southern accent Minkowski is almost sure is fake. “How are we feeling right now?”

Minkowski tries to shove herself up from the chair she’s in, but can’t- she’s chained to it, and the chair itself is bolted to the wall. Hilbert’s voice comes from next to her. “I tried that already,” he says, his voice flat. She turns her head over to look, just to see him in a similar situation to her, chained up and unable to move. Her expression must have given away her emotions, because Kepler laughs.

“Oh, yes, Lieutenant,” he says, his voice practically dripping with smugness. “I have taken the liberty of securing both you and your medical officer. Now, do you know where you are?”

Minkowski looks around, noting the weaponry, all the gleaming metal of all the painful things in the room. Guns, yes, but other things, too- things with sharp bits and drills and what seem to be pliers attached, things she couldn’t recognize if she tried. She’s never seen this room before, which means… “We’re not on the Hephaestus,” she says, her tongue feeling almost too swollen for the words. It comes out strange and slurred, but Kepler nods.

“Very good,” he says to her, with the tone of a preschool teacher who will be awarding a gold star to the student who answered the question so well, and she scowls at him. “We,” he continues, “are in the armory of the Urania. Do you like it?”

He doesn’t expect an answer, but Minkowski gives him one anyways. “No.”

Kepler raises an eyebrow. “Well, that’s a shame, because you’ll probably be here for a nice, long while. Isn’t that right, Mr. Jacobi?”

“Oh, yes,” says Jacobi. “You’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Mmm-hmm. And, Doctor Maxwell, could you tell us why?”

Maxwell pipes up. “Because you have both done something incredibly stupid, even by your crew’s pitiful standards.”

“Correct, Doctor Maxwell. And because of this incredible stupidity, I’m going to have to… let’s say, discipline you.” He turns to a table on the side of the room and picks up an evil-looking device, made out of knife-sharp edges and wires and engraved, oh god it’s _engraved_ , with the words “Old Reliable” on the side in cursive. He bounces it in his palm a couple of times, then presses a button. It whirrs to life, many blades hissing and humming. “You know,” he says, “No matter how much I get to use this, it never gets any less satisfying.” His smile is just as sharp as the torture device he’s holding, and Minkowski is afraid. But she is also the commander of this ship, no matter what anyone says, and one of her crew is in here with her and she will _not_ let herself show that fear in front of a person she is in charge of. She will not. So instead of being cowed into silence, she speaks.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Minkowski says.

Kepler widens his eyes dramatically and turns the device off with a flick of his thumb. “Oh? And why would that be? Is it because you’re still suffering from the illusion of hope gained by the knowledge that your two friends are still out there? Because if so,” he says, “we’ll soon remedy that.” He looks over his shoulder at Jacobi. “Go collect Eiffel and the captain.” Minkowski’s chest goes cold with fear.

“Yes, sir,” Jacobi says. He leaves the room, and now it’s just her, Hilbert, Kepler, and Maxwell. Kepler turns to Maxwell next.

“Doctor, if you would be so kind?”

“Of course.” Maxwell turns to the console and types into it. “Hera, can you confirm that Captain Lovelace and Officer Eiffel are still in the bridge?”

Hera comes online, her voice glitching. “Yes… Dr. Maxwell,” she says, through virtual gritted teeth, and Maxwell nods.

“Good.” Kepler turns back to his captives. “Now, Lieutenant, Doctor, let’s begin-“

“You won’t find them,” Minkowski interrupts. “You just won’t. You’re declaring war on the two people on this ship who have the most experience in surviving in desperate situations- the man who lived for over 300 days in deep space with barely any resources by cryogenically freezing himself every damn day, and the chronically paranoid woman who single-handedly declared war on Goddard Futuristics, sent herself off to Earth in a shuttle made of scrap and a nuclear engine that should never have worked, and then came back with a bomb. You’re going up against them, and you think we’re the ones who should be afraid? Eiffel and Lovelace have survived everything that has ever been dished out to them, and if there’s anyone who could weasel out of this it would be those two. And you?” She pauses for a second. “You, _Commander_ , you think you can take us all out. But Eiffel is unpredictable, and Lovelace is desperate, and both of them have shown that they are willing to risk everything for us. You have no idea what’s coming for you. Or, at least, you won’t. Right up until everything you’ve worked for has been ruined and you wake up at the mercy of the most revenge-driven person I’ve ever met. Then, I think even you might figure it out.”

Kepler stares. Maxwell stares. Hilbert stares. Everything, for just a moment, is quiet. And then Kepler starts laughing; hard, gut-busting laughs, belly laughs, like someone just told the funniest joke he’s ever heard. He wipes away an imagined tear of mirth. “Oh, Lieutenant, that was adorable. Simply adorable. Hera?”

“Yes, Commander?” replies Hera, the two words laden with enough passive-aggressive hatred to last a lifetime. Kepler acts like he doesn’t notice.

He smiles at Minkowski. “Deploy the halothane gas canisters, quick as you like.”

Minkowski almost begs. She really does- she considers it for a second, considers saying _Please, let them go,_ but that would only give him what he wants. Eiffel and Lovelace- they’ll find some way out of it. They have to, because she knows damn well she would barely be able to stand having the last remaining member of her crew captured, and, well. Seeing Captain Lovelace finally brought down might actually break her, because it would void one of the only constants left in the tin can that is the Hephaestus: Lovelace can’t be stopped, and if she seems to have been, it’s only temporary. Minkowski clings to that hope with everything she has.

“Halothane gas deployed successfully,” says Hera.

* * *

 Lovelace peeks into the bridge, looks around at the undisturbed room, and then turns back and shakes her head. “Eiffel, she’s not here.”

“I mean…” Eiffel looks confused. “It’s possible she’s taking a really long time to get here.“

“No.” Lovelace shakes her head. She raises her voice to speak normally rather than in whispers. “If she was going to be here, she’d _be_ here by now. Which means something is horribly, horribly wrong. Which means that we need to get out of here now, before-“

There’s an electric crackle from the ceiling, and Hera’s voice cuts in, glitching horribly. “Hang on, hang on, I-“ The static clears, and Hera sounds relieved, if strained. “Okay. Okay. That helps a lot.”

Eiffel looks up, confused. “Hera? What’s happening?”

“Well, first of all, Kepler has captured Minkowski and Hilbert and is holding them in the armory of the Urania with plans to torture them. Oh, and I’m supposed to be knocking you out cold so Jacobi can collect you and bring you back with them right now.”

“What? How? Why?” Lovelace furrows her eyebrows and looks up at Hera’s nearest camera.

Hera responds with an electronic sigh. “Maxwell rewired me. She’s in my head now, giving me commands, and my programming is helping her right along.”

“So she just told you to deploy the gas on us?” Eiffel asks. He looks just as confused as Lovelace does.

“Yes.” Her voice is pleased, and Lovelace sighs.

“Hera. How are you blocking her? And is there anything we can do to, oh, I don’t know, _get Minkowski and Hilbert out from the clutches of a sadistic megalomaniac?_ ”

Hera is suddenly all business, brisk and efficient, and Lovelace appreciates that. She has no time for anyone to burn. Minkowski has no time for her to burn. “I’m isolating my systems, Captain, and doing a very good job of making sure she doesn’t notice that I’m ignoring her commands. But there’s no time for you to lose, because I don’t know how much longer I can do this. It-” she pauses for a moment, and when she speaks her voice is pulled even more taunt. “It’s extraordinarily painful. And Jacobi’s on his way to collect you two now. So I’d suggest you start moving.”

“Right. Maxwell first, again- we take her out, and then you’re freed up. Sound good?”

“Fine, yes. She’s in the hangar bay. But, Captain, you need to get there some way I can’t see you. If I can sense you, there’s no guarantee I can keep you safe for very long, or stop myself from executing the commands she’s giving me.”

Eiffel startles. “What? How the hell do you expect us to do that? There’s no place on this station you can’t get to. It’d be like trying to hide from the eye of God.”

Lovelace smiles. “I know exactly how. You know how there are rooms Hera can’t see? Rooms that the old Hephaestus had that this Hephaestus technically doesn’t?” Eiffel nods, and she pushes off a wall and drifts over to the bridge, glancing around and thinking through her past. “Well. I seem to remember there being corridors, as well. Right… around…” Lovelace spots a seam in the metal and turns to look around at Eiffel with a shit-eating grin on her face. “Here,” she says, and wrenches the door open. “Let’s go.”

* * *

 “You want to know what’s really impressive about all this?” Kepler asks, lazily twirling his gun around one finger. “What’s impressive is that you all had months to plan this little revolution of yours, and it still went so poorly. I honestly thought that when you all tried something like this, and I always expected it, that you would at least be better coordinated. Instead, you were just sloppy. Sad, really…”

Minkowski glares a him, then snorts and shakes her head. “You are so full of yourself. You really are, you know that? You never stop talking. Just go ahead, torture us or kill us or whatever you’re planning, but do us all a favor and be quiet while you do it.”

“Minkowski, I cannot recommend-” Hilbert starts, but Kepler cuts him off.

“Don’t get too… _impatient_ there, Lieutenant Minkowski. We’ll have plenty of time for that later.” He smiles, and Minkowski wants to vomit.

The comms buzz, and Kepler flips the switch to on. “Jacobi. I trust you have Officer Eiffel and the captain in custody?”

Jacobi coughs. “Sir, I’m in the bridge now, and they’re nowhere to be found. I think they rabbited.” He sounds disappointed and a little scared of Kepler’s reaction, and Minkowski allows herself a tiny, silent moment of triumph because she absolutely knew they could do it. Lovelace and Eiffel could get away, and they could still win. Then Kepler’s eyes narrow, and that hope dies inside of her. _Shit_.

“So they weren’t in the range of the gas.”

“Nope. Looks like they unearthed some sort of weird, buried parts of the station. You want me to go after them?”

Kepler pauses, then sighs. “No. It would take too long. Proceed directly to Contingency Echo.” Then he glances at Minkowski and Hilbert, and she feels her stomach go cold as he smiles. “I think I have an idea of how we can finish this up quickly.” Before Minkowski can blink, Kepler cocks his gun and aims it directly between her and Hilbert. Against her will, she flinches. “Now,” says Kepler. “Let’s see if they’re listening.”

* * *

 Lovelace moves through the dust-covered rooms and tries only to think about what’s happening now, and not what happened before. Her crew from before is dead. Her crew now doesn’t have to be. She pushes herself forwards, and Eiffel follows nervously, looking around like he expects the shadows to bite him. “Uh. Captain?”

“Not now.” Lovelace doesn’t even look at him, just keeps moving. “It’s two left turns and then a right. We should end up right there in the hangar bay.”

“Captain…” Eiffel stops, and Lovelace turns to face him, glaring.

“What? What is it, Eiffel?”

He fidgets uncomfortably under Lovelace’s stare. “It’s just- I get the feeling that this is a bad plan. Like, a really bad plan. Stopping a hurricane with a nuke levels of bad.”

“Okay, let’s say it is. What other suggestions do you have? Anything?” Eiffel is silent, and Lovelace continues. “Thought so. We already tried your plan, and it was a good plan, but it. Didn’t. Work. So unless you have something constructive to say, I need you to be _quiet_.” She tries to keep her voice very calm, but it doesn’t quite work- her desperation and anger is seeping through the cracks.

Eiffel screws up his face, then sighs. “Okay.”

“Good.” Lovelace turns around to continue moving, but the air is split by feedback, and she gasps and slams her hands over her ears. The squeal resolves into a crackle and then into Kepler’s voice.

“A hearty hello to all would-be revolutionaries! This is your five-minute warning. The deal is this: I have Lieutenant Minkowski and Doctor Hilbert in my loving care. If you don’t surrender by the deadline, I will shoot one of them in the head.”

Lovelace swears, and Eiffel grabs her by the shoulder, spinning her around to face him. “We can’t let this happen, Captain, we have to surrender.”

“I-” Lovelace is cut off by Minkowski’s voice, faint and frantic in the background.

“If you surrender, he’ll kill all of us,” she says, and Lovelace knows she’s right. “Don’t listen to him, don’t give in-”

_Bang!_

The gunshot is deafening even over the comms, and both Lovelace and Eiffel flinch this time. Then there’s a long pause, Minkowski totally silent. Finally Kepler continues, his voice very calm. “That was a warning shot. To give you something to think about. Now, as I was saying: who are you more willing to lose? Who should I pick? Because I’m more than willing to just flip a coin and see who gets tails.”

Lovelace grits her teeth, and Eiffel grips her tighter. “You have to, Captain, you have to-”

Lovelace wrenches her arm from his grasp. “You heard Minkowski,” she hisses. “If we surrender, everyone dies. All of us. And then Goddard gets what they want.”

“But if we don’t, then the blood of whoever Kepler decides to shoot is on our hands, on _your_ hands! At least this way it buys us some time!”

“Three minutes,” says Kepler, and she flinches.  
  
“Fine, I’ll-”

Minkowski’s voice comes over the comms and cuts her off. “You’re a dumbass."

* * *

 Kepler stares at her as she talks, words spilling out of her mouth as she tries desperately to draw his attention to her. “You’re asking Lovelace to surrender. Have you seen her? Have you _heard_ her? Because if you haven’t, I’m going to quote something to you. Some of the first words I ever heard from her voice, if not from her mouth.” Minkowski takes a deep breath, and when she speaks it’s like the words are being ripped from her throat. She repeats the words she heard from the warning Lovelace left, the one she and Eiffel found more than a year ago. “‘Run. And. Hide. Because by the time I’m done you will feel more helpless and more alone than all the innocent people you’ve ever hurt.’” She pauses, then bares her teeth in something not quite like a grin, even as the corners of Kepler’s mouth turn down. “She’s never going to give up. Not even for us. And as for Eiffel,” Minkowski says, pointedly, because goddammit this message has to get through to Doug and Lovelace, not Kepler, “he’ll do whatever she says, because she’s his commanding officer now.” Minkowski shakes her head. “I wonder how many innocent people you’ve hurt?”

Kepler’s face is beetroot red, and Minkowski can practically see the veins in his temple throbbing. “You have a lot of faith in your crew, Lieutenant. I wonder… do they have the same faith in you?”

Minkowski snorts. “I’m not what they deserve from a commander. They deserve so much more. And I stand by what I said, _Colonel Kepler_. You. Are. A. Dumbass.”

“Well then.” His face clears, eyebrows lifting, teeth unclenching, and Minkowski knows she’s made a mistake. “Well, well, well then. I see you’ve finally reached the same conclusion about yourself that I did when I first got here. But I don’t know if we’ve quite convinced the other members of your crew, have we? I don’t know if this revelation has had time to sink in. So I think… I might just try helping it along.”

Kepler levels his gun at Hilbert.

* * *

 “Captain Lovelace, Officer Eiffel, I’m going to shoot Doctor Hilbert in the head.” Lovelace’s mouth gapes open in shock, but Kepler continues speaking. “And I think I’ll help the counter along a little. I said five minutes? No. You have until I get to zero. _Ten_.”

Lovelace is silent for a moment. Then she bites down hard, clenching her jaw, and begins to move back down the corridors towards the hangar bay.

“Captain, we _can’t_ -”

Lovelace turns on Eiffel furiously, her hands balled into fists. “We can and we _will_ , Eiffel. You heard Minkowski. I am your commanding officer now. If you really think that this will help, if you really think that we can get out of jail free, then by all means, answer the comms and surrender yourself and me right now. But I’m not doing it.”

“Nine,” says Kepler.

Eiffel’s mouth opens and closes a few times like the mouth of a fish, and then he shakes his head silently. “This is still wrong.”

“Yes. But I’ll be damned if I let him get what he wants.”

“Eight.”

* * *

Hilbert looks surprised, at first, then just sullen and resigned. Kepler shifts his weight impatiently, tapping the fingers of his free hand against the wall. “You know, Doctor, they might just be cutting it a little close. Seven.”

“You have made the wrong choice,” Hilbert responds. “I will not be a good enough incentive to convince the others to surrender.”

“No, possibly not. But Minkowski here,” he jerks his head towards her, gesturing, “could absolutely order this all to stop. They listen to you, don’t they? Officer Eiffel listens to you. He’s never stopped calling you “Commander”. And as for Captain Lovelace… well.” He gives Minkowski a cruel little smile. “I highly suspect that she’d at least take your suggestion under consideration.” His voice hardens. “Six. Any takers?”

“Fuck you.” The venom in Minkowski’s voice is surprising even to herself. “Fuck you, you inhuman, rotten, disgusting piece of _garbage_.”

“Lieutenant, don’t say anything-” Hilbert starts, but Kepler cuts him off.

“Three.”

“What? That’s- that’s not even how a countdown works!” Minkowski’s grasping at straws now, desperate to get him to stop, but she _can’t_ surrender. She can’t.

“Two,” says Kepler. “Oh, won’t anyone take the lead now that your precious Lieutenant refuses to? No?”

“I’m sorry,” Minkowski whispers.

“That is not nearly enough.” Hilbert watches Kepler as he brings the gun to bear, pointing it between his eyes.

“One. Going once… going twice…”

The comms are silent, and Minkowski sees a flash of genuine fear on Hilbert’s face, sees him squeeze his eyes shut. Then the gun goes off.

* * *

 The gunshot echoes through the comms, and Lovelace inhales sharply. Behind her, Eiffel makes a choked noise as Kepler comes back over the comms. “You have thirty minutes to think about what you’ve done. Then we’ll consider what to do about Lieutenant Minkowski.”

The comms crackle and go off, and Lovelace feels her body flood with rage, hot and red. She had never even liked Hilbert. But... “Eiffel, change of plans. We’re going to go after Maxwell. And then if that doesn’t work,” she says, shoving herself off and moving faster through the corridors, “we’re going after Jacobi. Either way, we’re going to _make sure Warren Kepler never so much as lays a finger on Minkowski. Do you understand me?_ ”

Eiffel’s voice, when he speaks, is tiny. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.”

* * *

 Minkowski stares at the body. There’s more blood than she had expected. _Why is there so much blood?_ In the microgravity it doesn’t even splatter- it _floats_ , misshapen bubbles of gore drifting around in the air. There are drops of it on her. Beyond it, Kepler sits, smiling, polishing his gun. “Shame that you wouldn’t order them to surrender, Lieutenant. Just a damn shame.”

Minkowski looks at him, stares at him, and shakes her head. “I stand by what I said. Fuck you.”

“Oh, come now, you can’t really believe you’re going to win? Not after all this?”

She grits her teeth. “Maybe not. But I know that you’re not going to, either.”

Kepler shakes his head. “It’s adorable how much trust you put in them. Lovelace especially. I wonder why that is?” Minkowski doesn’t answer, and he continues. “I’m done playing games, Lieutenant Minkowski. And your time is running out.”

* * *

 When Lovelace and Eiffel get to the hangar bay, Maxwell is talking to Hera, with her back turned away from them. “...I’m just going to make some adjustments to your-”

“Oh, you don’t have to-” says Hera, her voice slightly frantic, and Lovelace swears under her breath and gestures to Eiffel as a signal not to move. As Hera and Maxwell continue to argue, Lovelace carefully picks up a fire extinguisher and propels herself towards Maxwell, stopping directly behind her. Hera stops stalling slightly, then continues. “Before you do this… just ask yourself: Do you know that there’s someone standing behind you with fire extinguisher?”

Maxwell jerks her head back in surprise. “What?” But before she can turn around, Lovelace brings the extinguisher down on her head with a clang, and the doctor’s tiny frame crumples in midair, floating limply.

“Oh, thank god. I was beginning to worry.”

“Yeah, well.” Lovelace drops the fire extinguisher and cracks her neck. “Can’t keep us down for long.” She glances over her shoulder at the hidden corridor door. “Eiffel, you can come out now.” Then she turns back to Hera. “Do we have any rope?”

“There’s some in the utility closet behind you.”

“Awesome. Thank you.” Lovelace turns, rummages around in the closet, and comes up with some rope. She begins to loop it around Maxwell, tying her unconscious body to a chair as Eiffel watches. “Hera, where’s Jacobi?”

Hera pauses for a second, thinking. Then- “I can’t be completely sure, but I think he’s in the comms room.”

“What?” Eiffel sounds practically enraged. “He’s in the comms room? He’s in _my_ comms room?! Oh, hell to the no. Captain, what’s the plan to get that slimy little bastard away from my equipment?” Lovelace doesn’t stop tying up Maxwell, just reaches down into her belt, pulls out her gun, tosses it at Eiffel. He catches it, barely. “What-”

“You’re going to go do to Jacobi what I did to Maxwell here. And then we’ll have a little chat with Kepler about hostages.”

“But… now you don’t have a gun.”

Lovelace ties one last knot, shoves herself back from Maxwell and looks at her handiwork, and nods in approval. The sleeping doctor is tied securely to one of the chairs, bound with as little slack as she could give her. Then Lovelace pushes herself off to float back over near the utility closet, over to the air vent cover next to it. “I think,” she says, leaning down and placing her shoulder against it, “that I’ll make do.” She shoves it, hard, and the cover pops off. Lovelace reaches a hand into the now-open air vent and feels around for a moment, then pulls out a gun, holding it up and enjoying Eiffel’s goggle-eyed expression. “I keep stockpiles around. Now go. It’s a straight shot to the comms room. And take the rope.”

Eiffel nods, then leaves, shoving himself through the corridors Hera can’t see while Lovelace stands up and moves back over to the comms. She flips them on, and Kepler’s voice comes through. “Maxwell? Is there some sort of problem?”

“Only the kind where your pet scientist is knocked out and tied up,” answers Lovelace, feeling a little bit of life come back into her. “I have Maxwell at gunpoint. Release Minkowski and surrender within the next ten minutes, and you might just get her back. Otherwise… well. Guess we’ll both be out of a doctor.” Lovelace hears something in the background of the comms, something that sounds a lot like Minkowski laughing a breathless, relieved laugh, and her chest swells despite everything. “Let me know when you’re ready to give up the ghost.”

Lovelace hangs up and sits down to wait.

* * *

 Kepler flips off the comms, and despite herself Minkowski smiles. “So. Are you going to take her up on that one?”

Kepler stares at her, then snorts and shakes his head. “Captain Lovelace may be a good chess player, but her strategy needs a little polishing. I think I know how to, well. Force checkmate.”

* * *

 Maxwell wakes up slowly, her eyes foggy and confused. When she sees Lovelace pointing a gun to her head, however, they snap fully open. “What the hell?”

“Shut up.” Lovelace looks at her, taking in the confusion in her green eyes. “You’ve gotten the short end of this stick, and you now have- Hera, time?”

“Seven minutes,” says Hera.

“Seven minutes for Kepler to surrender before I kill you.” Lovelace lowers the gun a fraction, looking at her and waiting for horror. But Maxwell’s face lifts, and she laughs.

“You think you’re going to out-maneuver Kepler? You honestly- oh, that’s funny.” Maxwell’s laugh breaks off into a sigh. “You don’t know him like I do.”

“No. And I don’t want to.” Lovelace glances up at the nearest camera, looking at Hera as best she can. “What’s our status on Jacobi?”

The comms crackles, and Jacobi’s voice comes over it. “His status, right now, is bored. Oh, and annoyed! Hi, Captain. Your mutiny was kinda inconvenient for everyone.”

Lovelace makes a noise of disgust in her throat. “What do you want, Jacobi?”

“Lots of things, actually. Peace, quiet, Eiffel to stop lurking around the corner of the door trying to psych himself up to get in here and kill me.” The last part of the sentence is pointed, and Lovelace feels a chill run down her bones, turning her legs to jelly. If she had been on solid ground before, she might have fallen. As it is, she floats and waits as Jacobi calls out. “It’s okay, Eiffel! You can come in now. Your frankly idiotic ruse has been discovered.” There’s a long pause, and then the creak of the door being opened, and Lovelace’s heart sinks. Then there’s the sound of one of them- _which one?_ \- cocking their gun.

Eiffel’s the first one to talk. “Don’t move, Jacobi.” His voice is shaking a little, and Lovelace is scared, damn scared, because she sent him into this situation, and it’s looking more and more like they won’t get out alive.

Over the comms, Jacobi snorts. “You’re going to shoot me? You’re really going to try and shoot me? No, I don’t think so. I mean, after all, you’re just sort of everyone’s mascot. You have the “peaceful” approach, when all the other people on your crew are going off the rails and gunning for blood. And besides,” he says, and another gun cocks, “I’m willing to bet I won’t hesitate for as long as you will.”

“Go ahead, bet on it. But I’ll take you down with me.” The shaking has gone away, and Eiffel sounds resigned now, like he’s finally accepted that this is his only option, a far cry from his earlier begging for peace.

Lovelace clenches her teeth and turns to Maxwell. “Jacobi, if you hurt him I will kill Doctor Maxwell. I will.”

“Everyone, just put the guns down,” says Hera, but Lovelace ignores her, and so does Jacobi.

“No, you won’t. Captain, you like to make yourself out to be tough, but we all know you’ve been defanged. Especially now that I’m about to blow up the stock of napalm you’ve built up.”

“ _What?!_ ” Lovelace almost screeches. “How did-”

Maxwell chimes in, looking smug, and Lovelace suddenly and desperately wants to blow a hole in her head just to take that expression off her face. “Did you really think we didn’t know? We monitor you, all of you. Your days of sneaking around were over the minute we arrived on your station. It was… well, it was pretty pitiful, actually.” Lovelace looks at her, looks at her condescending smile, and fights the urge to keep her finger from tightening on the trigger, because that will spell Eiffel’s death for sure. Instead, she stands stock-still, and Jacobi takes over.

“We have about twenty pounds of C-4 under the floor of that hidden room right now, and it’s already on a countdown,” he says, breezily. “One hundred seconds, the timer hits zero, and your stash goes boom. That’s going to happen no matter what. But what might change is that in 84 seconds now, when the timer goes off, I’ll shoot Eiffel if you haven’t freed Maxwell. Got it?”

“Oh, I get it all right,” Lovelace answers, and the film of anger drops back over her eyes for a moment, blurring the world. She drops her voice, letting it go low and cold and harsh. “I get it.”

There’s a long pause, then Jacobi coughs. “And so you’re… not letting her go. Right. You have 60 seconds until Eiffel dies.”

Eiffel groans. “Jacobi, come _on_. Do you need to go all countdown of doom on us too? We get it. You’re going to kill me.”

“Yes. And I’m going to do it while you’re holding a gun at me, too paralyzed to try and take your chances before the timer runs out. It’s going to be kind of sad and kind of really, really funny. 45 seconds.”

“I hope you know that you won’t get out of this alive, Jacobi,” Lovelace says. “I hope to God you know that. And I also hope you know enough to either let Eiffel kill you now or put your own gun to your head and blow your brains out, because you are really, really not going to like what will happen if I get ahold of you.” As she says the words, Lovelace feels vaguely sick to her stomach. She’s never really killed anyone before. Not really. Not with her own hands. But she knows, deep down, that she can.

“I think you’ll be surrendering before that happens,” Maxwell says.

“20 seconds,” continues Jacobi. “Are you gonna give up now?”

Eiffel answers him this time. “No. Hell no.”

“And you still haven’t shot me. Wow. Too bad you put your faith in the wrong guy, Captain!” Lovelace can practically hear the sardonic grin on Jacobi’s face. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One-”

The station rocks with an explosion, shaking it down to its core. From comms there are two gunshots, one after another, and Lovelace aims her gun at Maxwell and pulls the trigger. The complacent look doesn't have time to slide off her face before the bullet hits, and then all her muscles go slack, leaving her with a vague look of surprise. Her limbs flop like she’s a rag doll, as much as they can with her tied up, and bits of bone and brain matter and much more blood than Lovelace had expected float through the room far calmer than their grisly natures would suggest they should.

She looks at them, at Maxwell’s dead body, and feels absolutely nothing.

Lovelace pulls herself back, taking her eyes off the body and focusing on the opposite wall, at a dent in the metal paneling. “Hera, what happened over there?”

There’s a very, very long pause, and then Hera responds shakily. “He… they shot each other, Captain. I think- I think Eiffel fired first, and- they’re both dead. They’re dead.” Hera pauses for a long second, and this sinks in. Lovelace swallows, painfully, and Hera continues. “So what now?”

“Now?” Lovelace moves her head, staring directly into one of Hera’s cameras. “Now we end this. For good."

* * *

 Kepler is quiet. Kepler is finally, finally quiet, his face frozen into an expressionless mask, and Minkowski looks at him and feels fear even through the numbness that is permeating every fiber of her being. He meets her eyes, briefly, and behind them she can see a glimpse into hell. And then he opens his mouth, and his voice is as congenial as ever. “I guess I still have to do everything around here.”

Minkowski’s eyebrows shoot up and her eyes widen. “Everything- Colonel, your people are dead. All of them. _All_ _of_ _them_ _except_ _you_. Do you think that you can still get out of this? Because I’m sorry, but both our plans have totally fallen apart.” Minkowski raises her voice, trying to get through to him even though she knows it won’t work. “You’re trying to patch a sinking ship with duct tape and chewing gum. And it’s. Not. Working.”

“It will,” he says, but there’s a gleam of uncertainty in him, just a little bit. It’s more than Minkowski’s ever seen before. “It will.”

Something inside the ship, something huge, grinds and whirrs to a halt, shaking the room. Minkowski looks down at the floor, then back up at Kepler. Her voice is deadpan. “You’re going to have to bail faster.”

The floor shakes again, and Kepler curses and hits the comms. “Captain, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Lovelace’s voice crackles over, and it’s utterly calm and level, but Minkowski knows by now how to tell when Lovelace is pissed off and she knows that at the moment she’s utterly apoplectic. “Ending this.”

“Oh? How do you mean?” Kepler steeples his fingers as best he can.

“Hera and I just shut off all the engines.” The latent hatred in Lovelace’s voice could melt holes in steel, and for a second Minkowski is more afraid of her than she is of Kepler.

Then she thinks about what’s happening, and she smiles.

When Kepler speaks, he sounds nervous. He sounds afraid. He sounds, most of all, vaguely intimidated. “You- what are you doing, Captain? _What the hell are you doing?_ ”

“You know damn well what I’m doing, so don’t waste my time asking stupid questions. Either you surrender and let Minkowski go, or I resume my former role as navigations specialist of this station and fly us all directly into the star. Your choice.”

“You’re crazy,” says Kepler.

Minkowski shakes her head. “No. We’re just resorting to some very, very desperate measures. You said you were going to force checkmate, right? Well, good job. You did. But it’s not our king in danger.” She looks him in the eye and takes in the situation, takes in how close to death she is, and she realizes that she doesn’t care. The only thing she really cares about is- “Isabel. Four people have died today. Make sure that if you or I go down, we take him with us, one way or another.”

“Will do, Commander,” says Lovelace. For a second there’s something warm in her voice, and Minkowski smiles wider. Then her voice is back to being brisk and cold. “You have two minutes until we’re done for. Better make up your mind soon.”

Kepler bangs his hand against the wall, and Minkowski startles, looking at him in surprise. “No,” he says. “No. No, no, no.” Each time he says it, his voice gets louder. “You wouldn’t dare sacrifice Minkowski. I know you wouldn’t-”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You _don’t_ know me, Colonel. You never have. And at this rate, you never will.”

He looks panicked now, eyes darting around the room. “Hera, restart the engines. This is an order.”

“No.” Hera’s voice is strained, tense and crackling, but her words are firm. “No, I don’t think I’ll be doing that.”

“ _What?!_ ” Minkowski can see Kepler getting more and more desperate, lashing out. “What do you mean, “no”?”

“I mean no! I mean that I won’t be taking that order, no matter what you tell me, no matter what my programming tells me. I can stick it out for two minutes, and then gravity will do the rest.” As if to punctuate her words, Minkowski feels the Hephaestus rumble under her feet. There’s a pause. “Well. One minute now.”

Kepler casts his eyes around, looking for a way out, looking for something. His gaze lands on Minkowski, and she shakes her head. “You’re on your own. I’m not going to tell her to stand down. Even if I wanted her to, I wouldn’t.” She’s not even exaggerating. Minkowski wonders what death is like, and concludes that it doesn’t matter. In one way or another, she always knew she would die in space. “If you don’t want to die an agonizing death, you’re going to have to surrender. Otherwise, we’re all doomed. And all because you were dumb enough to take her on.”

He stares at her for a moment, then reaches down. When he comes back up, he has his gun again, and an almost crazed look in his eye. “Fine then. You go first, Lieutenant.” Then he brings it to bear.

The last thing Renee Minkowski ever sees is the flash of light from the muzzle of the gun, right before the bullet tears through her brain.

* * *

Lovelace hears the gunshot and screams in rage and anguish, doubling over like someone punched her in the gut as Hera lets out a screech like tearing metal. _Minkowski, Minkowski, no…_ She’s vaguely aware of Hera yelling for Minkowski, calling out to her. She’s even more aware that there’s no answer, until Kepler comes on. “Lieutenant Minkowski is dead,” he says, and those words hit Lovelace even harder than anything else. “She’s dead. And now I surrender to you, Captain. We’ll go through this with equal odds. One-on-one. So call it off.”

Lovelace feels tears on her cheeks, and she shakes her head. “Thirty seconds,” she says, and it almost hurts to speak, but she gets the words out, even if her voice is hoarse.

“You lost your last chance,” says Hera, and her voice is glacial in contrast to the rawness of Lovelace's. “Now we’re all going down.”

Everything is silent, except for the Hephaestus shaking under the pull of the star’s gravity and Lovelace’s breathing, heavy and pained.

“Twenty seconds,” says Hera. “Get ready.”

“You’re so damn stupid,” Kepler says. “You’re just so damn stupid. You think this is going to make a difference? Goddard doesn’t care. You’ve accomplished nothing.”

“I don’t care about them. I care that because of you, Eiffel is dead. I care that you killed Hilbert. I care,” she says, her voice rising, “I _care_ that you _killed Renee_!”

“Renee,” says Kepler. “Interesting. Very interesting.”

“Eight seconds,” says Hera.

“Burn in hell, Kepler. Burn with us.”

And then they’re falling.

* * *

 Lovelace wakes up wreathed in blue fire that doesn’t burn, feeling it rubbing against her, gentle and rasping like a cat’s tongue. She tries to move, tries to look around, but it’s like she has no limbs. _Where am I? Where am- where are- where…?_

Her thoughts begin to dissolve like blood in water, and her mind flickers in and out. _I’m so sorry_ , she thinks, and there’s the pain, grief and guilt and shame. _I’m so sorry, Eiffel. I’m so damn sorry, Minkowski. I failed. I- we- we failed. I. I. Who am I? Isabel Lovelace, I’m Isabel Lovelace, we’re Isabel Lovelace_. Everything is foggy now, deteriorating, her memories and emotions becoming distant and impersonal. This pain is no longer hers. This pain is not theirs. _I’m- I am- We’re- We… failed_.

 _No_ _big_ _loss_ , thinks the collective that used to be Captain Isabel Lovelace.

 _We’ll just have to try again_.


End file.
